1. Field of the Invention
The subject technology relates to a foil transfer device, a foil transfer method and a system creating data usable for the foil transfer device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a metal foil is transferred to a paper medium, a leather item or the like (hereinafter, referred to as a “transfer target”) to print a letter, a design, a graphic pattern or the like (hereinafter, referred to as a “letter or the like”) on a surface of the transfer target. Printing a letter or the like with a metal foil improves the visual recognizability or decorativeness.
There are various methods for transferring such a metal foil. For example, a method using a thermal carving head having a heater mounted thereon is disclosed (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2002-240497). According to this method, a metal foil pasted on a surface of a transfer target is scanned and pressed by a thermal carving head to perform foil transfer. In this case, a layer of an adhesive is provided between the transfer target and the metal foil. The adhesive is melted by the heat, and the transfer target and the metal foil are pressurized to each other to paste the transfer target and the metal foil to each other.
There is another method disclosed by which a metal foil is scanned by laser light to transfer the metal foil directly to a transfer target (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2004-209818).
With these technologies, a route to be scanned by the thermal carving head or the laser light is preset along a contour of a letter or the like to be transferred. A foil transfer device causes the thermal carving head or the laser light to scan the metal foil along such a preset route to transfer the metal foil to the transfer target.
According to the knowledge of the present inventor, a letter or the like having a certain shape has an acute angle portion included therein. If the route to be scanned by the thermal carving head or the like is preset along the contour of the letter or the like in such a case, the acute angle portion is heated in an overlapping manner and thus the heat is concentrated thereon. As a result, the shape of the metal foil in the acute angle portion is destroyed, which causes a problem that an unevenness in the transferred metal foil occurs. The “acute angle portion” refers to a portion having an acute angle (for example, less than 90 degrees) made by two line segments.